From time to time a poem

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13 years 7 months ago #32456 by Damion_Storm
Pain

I have a pain that hides in the shadows of every soul. It may linger in the dark or come out in full. Who among you can hold back this treacherous pain and lock it away for eternity in silence? I have tried all my life to hide my pain. It is a pain greater than any other that I have had to endure. Many have seen it, felt it, and know what it is. What do you do with the pain that you have locked away? Do you use it, forget it, or let it lay in wait for one moment when it can break free and control every aspect your life? I now use my pain to drive me in every minute of every day never to be pushed aside by anyone. Never will I come in second, third, or last again. As long as I keep my pain for the betterment of my dying heart, I will always know the joy of success. For success is not knowing victory in everything you do, But to always strive to better yourself and in the same regard success is to know your pain and destroying the very fear of pain. Fear of pain is the barrier between the past and the future. You can either live in fear or embrace your pain for the enrichment of your life.

The pain I am referring to is called love. Love is the very pain that lives in every heart, every mind, and every soul of every man, woman, and child that has and will ever walk the face of the earth in the pursuit of joy and happiness. Why is it that everyone must live with the pain that love causes? Love is pain and so pain is love. For without a little pain in the lives of mankind, how can one truly know the feeling of pure love?

And so a man walking in pain will surely one day find love, and a man walking in love will surely find pain. However, as surely as a man walking in love will find pain it will again be replaced by love in an endless battle within the heart. The only love without pain is a love that is dead. Now forever in pain, I close with love.

By: Robert Cannon

Rev. Robert Cannon OCP
Bishop of TotJO
Master Knight of Jediism
B.Div

Active Apprentices: None
Former Apprentices: Cynthia, Alexandre Orion, Reliah, Archon
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11 years 10 months ago #58251 by Alexandre Orion
Meet me in the Pleiades

Alexandre Orion
Octobre 2010


It’s this same old melancholy song
We’ve been dancing to for, gods, how long ?
Wearing different faces, living different lies,
Drawing different pictures
On different seasons' skies …

Different constellations in different starry nights
Where different worlds we’ve walked upon
– and there told tales from dusk ‘til dawn –
Are forever seen as twinkling lights.

If ever you remember,
As by a summer breeze,
On a humid winter whisper
Meet me in the Pleiades.

***
Sighed so sadly in the Taurean spring
When winter stars, for vengeance, bring
To massacred fears, Sagittarian tears
& worlds without sunrise
For forty thousand years …

And the same old constellations in the same old starry night,
Dance long this melancholy song
– where there, the rift we walked along –
Is still seen in shimm'ring light.

So, if you're out there somewhere,
By a sighing autumn breeze,
While there's still the slightest ember
Meet me in the Pleiades.

***
In all the constellations in any starry night,
And on any world I come into,
Looking up, still talk to you,
As Aldebaran still shines bright …

So, though you've flown to elsewhere
On your tepid Taurean breeze,
Should you care to meet me anywhere,
Meet me in the Pleiades.

Be a philosopher ; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.
~ David Hume

Chaque homme a des devoirs envers l'homme en tant qu'homme.
~ Henri Bergson
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11 years 10 months ago #58393 by Alexandre Orion
Mao Alpha

Fear not thy regard of Others
In that all Men are thy brothers,
All soul-seeking Life's unique path
Armed with what courage he hath,
So, have no Fear, as tides will turn,
While passing moons seasons adjourn,
And suffer well your solitude,
Within-without Man's brotherhood:
Abandonment with dignity
Wherein thou shalt oft think of me.

Today I am by thy side
As crossing stars permit betide,
My balmy whispers warm thy cheek
With every poem that I speak,
But forget not that naught abides
The turning of those fateful tides !
So, savour well this day that is,
For Time takes by all that is His,
And the tapestry of Life
Weft out of all her woe and strife
Resides but a Time on her wall
Before she bids 'adieu' to All …

By song of nightingale delighted,
Springtime Love comes late benighted,
For no New Moon can ever save
What needs must bear unto its grave
As this World, of Truth in cups,
On only Wisdom's humbles suppes …

Thus, learn, suffer, love and live
As Wisdom knows what's best to give,
Keep vivid in thy memory
That which is yet cannot be
As breathing, bleeding, true to plan,
Unfolds the Destiny of Man.

Existence will be succession
Of choice and chance in precession,
Providence and amplitude
E'er give thee o'er to solitude.

Yet be not mournful – thou doth go,
True solitude thou shalt know,
And when thou on thy death-bed lay
Thee down a near or distant day,
As erstwhile Springtimes coincide,
I shall again be by thy side …
Alexandre Orion
pour Manon Cousin
29 octobre 2011

Be a philosopher ; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.
~ David Hume

Chaque homme a des devoirs envers l'homme en tant qu'homme.
~ Henri Bergson
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11 years 10 months ago #58515 by Alexandre Orion
Game
(This is a translation from French, so please read it as such)

This is not the only Game in which these pieces are present, nor is it the only one to which they present themselves. It is however the only one into which they can be present in others at the same time as in Your time. The playing field extends before you, and for you. For you and for the Other.

You take a long, deep breath – the fresh air fills your lungs and all of your being with courage. The Game will begin soon. You recognise at least the novelty of the match. They are frequent; they blend into one another in such a way as that sometimes you have the impression that one Game has only ended from the moment you find that another has certainly already been in progress for an uncertain time. The time of the Game is never agreed upon beforehand. It lasts as long as it lasts …

The pieces are light and dark. Sometimes they change tones. A light piece becomes dark without you seeing it darken. Sometimes a dark piece lightens, but this seems to happen much more rarely. The change in tone is, in all cases, an effect of its movement – the piece well or badly played finds itself surrounded by other pieces, friendly or adverse, all equal (more or less), they are also in apparently random mutation. There are several thousand rules; one can only respect them by fair trangressions of them. When you hardly think about it, the Game is complicated. If you think about it, it is even more so.

Over time, you have become accustomed to its enigmas. The happenstance events of the Game almost never shock you anymore. Or rather, the shock has become habit. What motivates the Game is its dynamic. You place your pieces, they move by themselves. You watch the Game unfold not only as player, but also in the role of a spectator. You are a player, and you are played by the Game. You are played by your strategy and by that of the Other. You are played by the Other, and he by you.

He is the only constant, he is the Other. You have been playing against and with him for Eternity. You have been played by him for as long. You know one intimately, so much so that you are strangers to one another. You cannot resist one another; your mutual resemblance proves to be a gravity well in which you both orbit perpetually around the barycentre of the Game. You play to pass the time, in order to not annihilate yourselves, so much you love each the other. So much you both love the Game. You love the Game because it lets you hate one another, and you love to hate one another. The Game becomes your only value. The Game becomes existence …

So, you find yourself, again and for always, facing him, the Other. You ask yourself to what deceptions will he resort to meet his objectives. You try in vain to know what his objectives in fact are. His only goal which is certain is your defeat. His pieces darken and darken yours. His Game is cruel, you feel, and his only ideal, and that since the dawn of time, is to win.

Therein lies the difference. There are two players: the one who want to win, and the other who wants only for the Game to be good.

It is ironic, you believe, that the Game can be good beyond victory, beyond loss. Win or lose, insomuch as you have played well, you could be satisfied. The Game satisfies its own needs. All you have to do is place the pieces. As always, they move by themselves. But they all desire advancement and to stay in the Game, whether or not they know they have been placed, whether or not they know they are being played.

The Game is precious, as is every playing piece. You love your pieces; each of them exceptionally beautiful. You desire above all to take care of them. You talk to them. You tell them sometimes about the Game, but never about the Other. They cannot know against nor with whom do you play. That, they would never understand. But that understanding is hardly essential to their well-being. It is really better that they do not know.

While placing your pieces, you do not recognise them as pawn or Queen. You cannot know if they are stones, bones or other tokens. Nor if they are Spades, Diamonds or Hearts. You never know if it is a Jack or a Joker. You cannot tell, at first whether they are light or dark. This knowledge comes during the course of the Game. But when they change colour, they can change their roles as well. A light Hearted Jack can become a dark Joker. The bright and shining Queen can make herself a pawn, right before becoming rubbish. The Joker stays a Joker, light and dark alike, yet the lighter he is, the less important the risk of darkening. Herein is yet another beautiful irony …

The Game starts. You smile as a calm anxiety possesses you –

“I know only how to Love, and Love is the desire to do good.” asserted Socrates they say. This is how the Game is played. What is “good” ? What is “to do good” ? What is the best way of knowing ? It all comes back to the same thing: the Game. Love is much easier in a good Game because victory does not matter so much. Neither does losing …

Yet on the side of the Other, who desires to win, nothing less than victory is acceptable. He places his pieces insidiously. He appreciates them because they are useful to his hidden agendas, but does he love them ? It is a good question … To him, the Game board, with its light and dark regions, is but a battlefield. For him, to lose is unthinkable.

He has certainly already suffered much loss. You know him better than anyone and everyone. His losses have filled him with hatred, and just as it is your Love that guides your Game, it is his Hate from which comes all his strength and ability. And you deal with it. You love him in order to hate him, and by hating him, you love him all the more deeply. On the contrary, he loves you because you hate him, for he cannot accept anyone's Love any more than he can accept loss.

One must reserve pity for the pathetic. As such, you cannot feel pity for him. He creates it for himself according to the rules of the Game, but you cannot. You hate him with your understanding, with your compassion and with your patience. You hate him with your tolerance for his hatred and his thirst for victory. You hate him with your respect for the Game, and given that when the Game is good, sometimes you win. And when you win, he hates you so very much more.

His Game then becomes more deceitful, more manipulative and evermore brutal. He plays his pieces as were they only tokens or stones and not the marvellously human hand-crafted works of art, worn only by time and multiple Games. He places them, he removes them. He manipulates his pieces, and if they do not win for him, he tortures them with guilt. It is difficult for you to watch as he does this, so very beautiful are each of the pieces. His pieces change colour often under his hand, certainly in tone, from light to dark, lighting again as yours darken – though they are always somewhat more tarnished than at the beginning.

Turn after turn, your grand manoeuvres are accomplished with your delicate pieces. The wear from the multiplicity of challenges is seen from day to day, from second to century. All they would need to shine again is a little warmth and to be caressed with a soft, clean cloth, a little maintenance during a period of rest. You find it difficult to recover the pieces he has taken, and he doesn't even bother to try to recover his. At any rate, the pieces taken in the Game never leave the board, except when they are broken. For as old and damaged as they become, they can only cover themselves during a short time-out …

You ask yourself from time to time why do you play the Game ? The answer doesn't come easily. The answer may not even exist. One knows his leisure, just as one knows his duty, but one cannot see what is instinct. Instinct is like culture. Try explaining what is water to a fish, it's impossible. You play the Game because it is your element. Outside of the Game, you are nothing. It is vital to you. It forms you now as much as it created you in the beginning. Your beginning. You cannot remember the first time you played. There was no ceremony, no rite of passage, no access in particular. You started playing because that is simply what you do. You remember quite clearly the opponent, the Other, young, fresh, naïve, almost innocent …

The pieces stay innocent, no matter the Game, and whether or not the Game is good or not. It could be a King, gone wild for his placement near a Castle majestically malicious, or a clear Joker brightened by an already light pawn, the pieces move themselves in reference to the competencies of the players. The pieces create and enlarge this reference. It otherwise doesn't exist, except by and for them. You love your pieces and you devote yourself to their good placement. You then expect nothing from them but that they move themselves as well as they can given the role, the colour and tone which they will have at the moment of their turn. You recognise the limits of your pieces. You only expect them to be such as they truly are.

The Other is not so clement. He modifies the behaviour of his pieces to conform to his desires. He already expects that their weaknesses will change them from one role to another, below or beyond their abilities. He counts on their suffering to drive them into power plays where otherwise tenderness would suffice. It is not enough for him to recognise the limits of his pieces, he exploits them. His pieces do not know innocence, they only know the shame and guilt of all their prior losses, those of the Other, but perceived as their own personal failures. They do not even know the player behind the Game. They do not see the Game in which they move. For them, the reference closes in on them. They change not only role and colour, but also composition with the passage of time. They get heavier, and when the Other can no longer manipulate them as he wishes, he throws them away.

And so marches on the Game, play after play, counter-move after move. The honesty of deception gets confused with the effect of success or failure in deceit. Such is the Game … As the pieces change colour, form and most certainly location, you confront the perversity of the Other, always facing you, the look and the mind sharp as those of an eagle and ready to strike you down if you allow him to notice, through inattention or some lack of candour, the most minor imperfection.

And imperfections, you have them, more than you know …

… especially the Love you feel for your pieces. They call out to you, you answer. You must answer, not knowing how long they will appear by their current, very temporary colour, form or placement. You hesitate, you trip over a sensitivity, over a memory or over a fortuitous intuition. The Other sees it. The Game, good or not, takes a bad turn. In seconds which each last a lifetime, you witness the taking of a piece which you particularly admire. You try to save whatever remains by a more philanthropic strategy, but the principal actor is no more – or is at least no longer of your colour, your form. The Other took him.

The Game, good or not, is over. The pieces, moving themselves, move themselves away. Your defeat surprises you; you had not seen the precision of the Other's calculations, but he had surely seen his chance. With one quite graceless, merciless manoeuvre, he seized his victory so coveted. Smiling at you from the depths of his conceit, he mocks you and your fatal error.

Fair player, you only wanted a good Game, not necessarily victory. As it were, you had neither. Your sorrow, born in the most secret chamber of your entrails, ignites. Your beautiful pieces having been deformed, discoloured and so very, very disgraced before your eyes, accuse you of vehement treachery, voluntary or not. All the Love that you had given them before the shock of an incontestable defeat transforms you, in one severely savage moment, into the thing the most miserable in their confused and consternated esteem.

They lament. Their tears erupt from festering wounds as the Other laughs beguilingly and savours all the misery he found the force to inflict. He not only won the Game, but humiliated you to the highest level. You leave from where you were, from where you had played, from where you were beaten. You leave your pieces behind – those you had loved so much – injured, broken and full of bitterness. You leave all that behind in order to cover another field, another arena. You abandon all that was for another fare elsewhere, somewhere good. You depart from your Game and exit.

Outside, it is raining buckets, if not barrels. Inside also. The sky, as dark as your abandoned pieces, as dark as the contrast between your soul of midnight blue against the sky-blue covering of your placement, ruptures and evacuates itself of all its humid heaviness. The steel and concrete coloured sky presses down on you with its illuminating reflections and thunderous explanations. The train in which you are travelling passes near the edge of a wood. You find yourself alone in the car. The trees proudly stand in attention all along this stretch of railway, their foliage undulating as a sea of shadow and stone, pious before the rain and wind. By and in the window at the other side of the car, you perceive, outside and in, a fatal image too familiar to not notice. A solitary weeping willow, weeping alone, bending under the blasts of the storm, bowing before Life. Its tears cleanse your eyes, and you clearly visualise across blood and sweat the mocking face that laughs, that taunts you, that has never left you for a single instant. Your reflection upon vision of the weeping willow, all comes together as One and in the voice of the Other, you speak to yourself again the first words since your failure : a round of Game ?you suggest …

One piece, almost forgotten, you possess still and for always. It is in good form, yet beautiful and even more polished from excessive use. It never leaves you either. As is your nature, you take this piece and place it on a black space. It is neither a Queen nor a Jack nor a Joker. It assures a good Game. Its name is Hope.

The Other smiles to you again from both sides of the window. The weeping willow is behind and in the rain of another landscape; you project an elsewhere – a good elsewhere – upon the horizon. Looking ahead, the Other places his first piece in front of your Hope. He waits ...

Be a philosopher ; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.
~ David Hume

Chaque homme a des devoirs envers l'homme en tant qu'homme.
~ Henri Bergson
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11 years 10 months ago - 11 years 10 months ago #58696 by Alexandre Orion
Sequence of the Nine Lords
“Tell me what you can remember ...”
Chimed the Lighter side of Reason,
During un-told time and season,
Blast-fiery tides to sailing sands
Blended seas around our antique lands.
“Of that, These are what we can remember :”
Questions cast out of glowing strands
On cratered mounts and molten bands,
In once nine times ninety distant worlds of areion ;
Nine then and always Lords of Orion …

***

Three times three were they to guide :
Three Aristos, bred and bona fide,
Three Phrontema to economise,
Three Eudaemons to harmonise.

And three times three in communion
Maintained the good of the Union,
Where nine times ninety worlds were evolved to areion
Well tended by the Lords of Orion.

***
Thus, four hundred forty thousand generations
Prospered in peaceful elation ;
Industry of Love, Economy of Life
Conscience coalesced into resources rife,
Throughout ninety constellations ...
Nine times ninety races, yet one community ;
Nine times ninety worlds in social unity ;
All Aristos, Phrontema and Eudaemons
Which were the Lords of Orion –

Ne'er knew we neither want nor war
In all the time that was before ;
True and Just Providence and Exploration
Guaranteed the Lords of Orion …

***
Thus, nine times ninety worlds made but one Nation
In cultural collaboration,
Such that all strife and poverty
Were only prehistoric mystery
Throughout ninety constellations …
***
“Tell me what you can remember ...”
Within a fold of History
One made become the three times three :
When Chimes the darker side of Reason
Telling time and counting Seasons ;

Insult when Gold and Steel disagree
On some six-fold seven frailty,
Nine times ninety worlds would disperse to oblivion
Leaving but One lone Lord of Orion …
“... and then what should one remember ?

… and yet must one hence remember ?”
Alexandre Orion
janvier 2012

Be a philosopher ; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.
~ David Hume

Chaque homme a des devoirs envers l'homme en tant qu'homme.
~ Henri Bergson
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Last edit: 11 years 10 months ago by Alexandre Orion.
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11 years 10 months ago #59041 by Alexandre Orion
Un-condition Thy Love
“I love thee” – A simple phrase,
And powerful incantation,
That whispers Fire
And frozen Desire
Of Souls in Transformation

It is known to every sorcerer,
Enchantress, Courtesan or Nonne,
The Mind repeats
The faintest Heartbeats
'Twix rising Moon and rising Sun ...
Beware the Love that shines
Too brightly in the Eye,
Casting shadows 'round one finds
Sometimes Error,
Sometimes a Lie …
Love imposes no Duty –
Not to Maiden nor to Mother –
No Guilt, no Doubt,
No concerns about
The Demands made by another ...

If Love it be, it is Free
Neither Fearful nor Condemning ;
No Jealousy,
No Ecstasy,
But, by its Grace, redeeming ...
Beware the Love that blinds
The Heart and stings the Eye,
The Servitude that binds
Is often Error,
Often a Lie …
Love freely without complaint
As doth the Force Universal,
Nor Error nor Lie,
In Truth, it is by
Nature Unconditional.
Alexandre Orion
mai 2012

Be a philosopher ; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.
~ David Hume

Chaque homme a des devoirs envers l'homme en tant qu'homme.
~ Henri Bergson
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11 years 10 months ago #59053 by
Replied by on topic From time to time a poem

Alexandre Orion wrote:

Un-condition Thy Love

Love imposes no Duty –
Not to Maiden nor to Mother –
No Guilt, no Doubt,
No concerns about
The Demands made by another ...

Beware the Love that blinds
The Heart and stings the Eye,
The Servitude that binds
Is often Error,
Often a Lie …
Alexandre Orion
mai 2012


I've mentioned before how beautiful your poetry is. This one has to be one of my favorites so far. I quoted the parts I liked best.
Thank you for sharing your talent :)

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11 years 10 months ago #59054 by Alexandre Orion
Thank you, Reliah !

I wrote this after the conversation the other night we were having in the chat.

Akkarin stated that he believes not in 'unconditional' Love.

I feel that 'unconditional' Love is the only sort that exists. If there are 'conditions', then it is a contract, not Love.

If there are any themes that you hold particularly close, anything that you would like to read in poetry, let me know ... I'll feel out what I can do. With privilege and pleasure.

Respectfully,
Alexandre Orion

Be a philosopher ; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.
~ David Hume

Chaque homme a des devoirs envers l'homme en tant qu'homme.
~ Henri Bergson
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11 years 10 months ago #59058 by
Replied by on topic From time to time a poem
I like such a wide variety of poetry..
Edgar A. Poe and Robert Frost are two of my more well known favorites.

Themes.. how about something along the lines of Joseph Campbell's thoughts on a hero.. you have to shed the "old you" so the "new you" can be born? If that even makes any sense..?

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11 years 10 months ago #59061 by Alexandre Orion
That makes perfect sense, Reliah.

I'll work on it, and when it is posted, it shall be dedicated to you.

Be a philosopher ; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.
~ David Hume

Chaque homme a des devoirs envers l'homme en tant qu'homme.
~ Henri Bergson
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